Homebrewed Christianity

Whiteheadian Witticisms: The Fallacy of Dogmatic Finality

‘Never swallow anything whole. We live perforce by half-truths and get along fairly well as long as we do not mistake them for whole-truths, but when we do mistake them, they raise the devil with us.‘

A conversation partner said, ‘That experience of yours as a young man, of seeing the Newtonian physics, which were considered fixed as eternity, blow up under you must have made a powerful impression.’

Whitehead replied, ‘It taught me to beware of certitude.‘

Elsewhere in our conversations on the beach he said, ‘The Universe is vast. Nothing is more curious than the self-satisfied dogmatism with which mankind at each period of its history cherishes the delusion of the finality its existing modes of knowledge. Skeptic and believers are all alike. At this moment scientists and skeptics are the leading dogmaticsts. Advance in detail is admitted; fundamental novelty is barred. This dogmatic common sense is the death of philosophic adventure. The Universe is vast.‘